All the rats escaped at once, penetrating the city with their bodies embedded of black rotten blood.
"Fuck!"
Yotoh screamed while looking at the back of the animals. It was disgusting to him, never could he imagine the things to carry potent diseases. He caught he man's right shoulder and pulled hard to get rid of the cloak. Only then did he notice.
"This can't be..."
With the remaining hair he had left on his skull, his face partly gone but most importantly, his right arm wholly missing, Yotoh recognised the man.
"Randi?"
He asked. The man in front of him had yellowish eyes overflowing with pus, spasms on the remaining arms and a dire need to eat properly.
A young civil, two meter away from the scene shouted at the top of his lungs.
"MONSTER!"
Causing people around to start panicking, and guards to have an adrenaline boost. The sudden surge in volume made the 'thing' react and attack in front of him. Yotoh barely had the time to react and block the frail man with his spear handle. He was destabilized by the intense stench and the hanging nasty bags of infect content.
He blinked once, one time too many. The thing was biting his forearm, with a dense purple foam leaking from his mouth and went full effort into biting harder. Its teeth were so weak two remained stuck in Yotoh's skin.
Picco and Ned arrived too late for him to be unscathed. They rushed on the monster and struck with all their might, hoping to kill the thing in just a slash.
The alley had gone mayhem, panic overburdened everyone's mind for the past few days, the anxiety of the war and the sudden burst of action made them overreact.
The walking corpse fell like stone while the crowd noticed the non bleeding.
"Stab him again!"
One said. The other did, but they all observed no change.
Behind, Yotoh held his arm and braced for the pain. The bite mark he received left coagulated blood and matter around the wound as well as inside of it. He was brought to the health department by his friends, he spoke with them on their way.
"Did you guys see what I saw? That was Randi right? I can't believe what I saw."
"Nah! Impossible!"
Replied Ned.
"He died seven moons ago. For sure this thing looked alike, but dead people can't erm... Well this one looked dead too I must admit."
"For god's sake it hurts so bad."
Ned scratched his head, he tried to recall Randi's features as best as possible and compare them to the creature. He then pulled the tooth from the wound and exclaimed.
"Oh that was deeper than expected."
"Frick ouch!"
Shouted Yotoh. His wound was bleeding as a tingling sensation crawled toward his shoulder. The healers and doctors cleaned the wound using water and powdered herbs.
"What about the rats?"
Yotoh asked. No one knew what he was talking about, making the doctor next to him question his sanity.
"Now he's delirious! Bring me the purple flowers and my grinder at once."
The two other guys were already gone for the duty report, three hundred meters away.
"Captain! Picco from Kodra, valiant from the army of the eye, reporting."
He said in a tent. The shelter had a huge red eye painted on it. A man sat in front of a low table, drawing arrows and cross on a leather map. He turned around, he had heard the earlier ruckus and was happy to be the first to learn about it.
"Report valiant."
"Captain, a man attempted to cross the southern gate. His strange behaviour betrayed his persona. The guard, whom he caught attention first, got bitten and is now being cared for. There are no casualties except the bizarre man. We left his body with the defence squad."
With his formal stance and straight posture, he was taken seriously despite his height in the army. A privilege he had long lost as an assistant. He was always a second, a scrap, a shadow for Leton. Today he was legion. He had the lowest grade yet because it was common, no one would disrespect him.
"Weird how?"
"Before being killed, he looked already dead. I saw him for a short time captain. I must say I've seen corpses in a better state. This guy had holes in the stomach dug by rats who ran away from his cloak when we touched it, he did not speak but instead jumped on valiant Yotoh from Kodra, to bite him. He was beheaded the next instant sir."
Never had the captain heard such story. He wanted to see by himself and moved toward the southern gate to discover people touching the corpse with a stick. The captain shouted.
"Where the hell is the defence section?"
No one around looked afraid, just curious. The defence team was around, most of them weren't even informed of the critical situation. It was Picco's plan to spice up the situation. The result being a panicking high-graded warrior in a mess, swearing against his own side.
After de-escalating the situation and secured a perimeter to not touch the probable monster, the captain explained the situation to Kianush, the king's assistant.
Few minutes later and the corpse was brought in the palace.
Ten people came prior, arranging leaves from banana plant to cover the royal carpet. Its restoration costed more than a small house last time it attended a dead guest.
"What's this all about? That's gross."
Said Chandragupta.
"My king, believe me or not, this man died before the sun touched the land. Today! That's an anomaly coming from the south entrance. Informing you of any anomaly here were your orders..."
"What did you say?"
The king stood up and almost jogged his way to the dead man. He observed it, touched it with the royal sceptre to see under the tissue the extent of the decay.
'Thankfully I don't know this person, Foresee said it might be a politic asset or a member of my family, yet this thing isn't related to both at all. Could it be a coincidence? No... This must be part of the prophecy, I'm dead tired of waiting night after night for the outcome of her visions.'
"What other informations do you have on this report"
After explaining the exact same thing his valiant told him, the captain was asked to bring his subordinates as fast as possible. They were then interrogated.
'Those three... If I remember well they are from...'
"Villagers from Kodra! How come you three are related to this affair?"
Ned was a little grumpy, being called simple peasant from an irrelevant place instead of a mercenary or not being shown the consideration of a soldier from the army of the eye made his upper lip twitch. He spoke first, with a strange accent.
"My king, the thing we've fought today is a wond'er to me. I guarantee you that I am confused first because of its clothes, its missing arm and the face he has reminds me of a person with who I've been lock'ed up to rot in a hole."
Then Picco spoke, annoyed to not have recognised the man too.
"Don't listen to him my king, this man died more than half a year ago under dreadful circumstances, we told you our story long ago, his name was Randi, he died of a infected wound that took away his arm. Death took his soul while we travelled together to Varanasi, hunting down the kid, Keith."
With a loud sigh, Ned added.
"You omitted details about that wound. Randi told me the kid bit his finger off. The wound grew with time and kept him bare'ly alive for more than a moon. As Randi followed us, he suffered yet surviv'ed only thanks to his motivation. I'm telling you my king, that corpse, that's Randi."
Yotoh scratched his arm, fever raised his body temperature and stress made his heart palpitate.
'If that's Randi, I don't want to finish like him.' He thought. With his mind going full rotor, he had ideas of effective way to stop the infection. Looking at his swollen forearm, he kept only one thing in mind. 'I need to cut it off before it's too late.'
In the sorcerer's private room, Keith felt a burning sensation in his arm near the wrist. He could still articulate it properly but something felt wrong.
---
In the Eye encampment, healers had a casual talking, a glass full of beverage in hand.
"Once, I was helping my mentor to clean burns. The kid had his skin burnt to a crisp and I can recall this very detail. Three pebbles, nicely trimmed were stuck inside his arm. I was asked to minimize the bleeding as the patient lost much blood and energy, so, my mentor and I, we left those stones in here and closed the wound above."
"Woah! That must've been an exceptional patient. Who was it?"
"Heh... No one important, I was told he died few days later anyway.
One of the four men was drunk, he didn't notice the grey rat running under the table. The one that bit his foot the same night.